RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Eichrodt, Walther. Theology of the Old Testament vol 1 (Old Testament Library).
The genius of this book is that it shows the stark contrast between Being-Religion and God's self-revelation
The first fifty pages or so was sheer excitement. I was floored. Here was one of the world’s leading Old Testament authorities saying everything about Hebrew Thought and God that I had been saying, except he had tenure.
This is only the first two hundred pages of Old Testament theology. These deal more with covenant and doctrine of God. The second half deals with covenant leaders. Key here is the contrast between covenant religion and magic (ontology) religion.
“That which binds together indivisibly the two realms of the Old and New Testaments…is the irruption of the Kingdom of God into this world and its establishment here” (26).
The Meaning of the Covenant Concept
Factual nature of divine revelation (37). “God’s disclosure of himself is not grasped speculatively.” As “he molds them according to his will he grants them knowledge of his being.”
A clear divine will is discernable. “You shall be my people and I shall be your God.’ Because of this the fear that constantly haunts the pagan world, the fear of arbitrariness and caprice in the Godhead, is excluded” (38). The content of that will is defined in ways that make the human party aware of the position (39).
The bond of nature religion was broken (42). The covenant did not allow an inherent bond in the believer, the order of nature, and the god. Chain of being is broken. Divinity does not display itself in the mysterium of nature. Election is the opposite of nature religions (43). Israelite ritual does not mediate “cosmic power.” “One indication of decisive importance in this respect is the fact that the covenant is not concluded by the performance of a wordless action, having its value in itself, but is accompanied by the word as the expression of the divine will” (44).
The History of the Covenant Concept
Eichrodt discusses the dangers the covenant idea faced. Canaanite ideas quickly muted the sharp sounds of the covenant. “The gulf set between God and man by his terrifying majesty was leveled out of existence by the emphasis laid on their psycho-physical relatedness and community” (46). It is interesting to compare this description with Paul Tillich’s claim that the church placed the intermediaries of saints and angels over the Platonic hierarchy of Forms.
Prayer
“Indicative of the pattern of Old Testament piety is the fact that the dominant motives of prayer never included that of losing oneself, through contemplation, in the divine infinity. There was no room in Israel for mystical prayer; the nature of the Mosaic Yahweh with his mighty personal will effectively prevented the development of that type of prayer which seeks to dissolve the individual I in the unbounded One. Just as the God of the Old Testament is no Being reposing in his own beatitude, but reveals himself in the controlling will of the eternal King, so the pious Israelite is no intoxicated, world-denying mystic revelling in the Beyond, but a warrior, who wrestles even in prayer, and looks for the life of power in communion with his divine Lord. His goal is not the static concept of the summum bonum, but the dynamic fact of the Basileia tou Theou” (176).
The genius of this book is that it shows the stark contrast between Being-Religion and God's self-revelation
The first fifty pages or so was sheer excitement. I was floored. Here was one of the world’s leading Old Testament authorities saying everything about Hebrew Thought and God that I had been saying, except he had tenure.
This is only the first two hundred pages of Old Testament theology. These deal more with covenant and doctrine of God. The second half deals with covenant leaders. Key here is the contrast between covenant religion and magic (ontology) religion.
“That which binds together indivisibly the two realms of the Old and New Testaments…is the irruption of the Kingdom of God into this world and its establishment here” (26).
The Meaning of the Covenant Concept
Factual nature of divine revelation (37). “God’s disclosure of himself is not grasped speculatively.” As “he molds them according to his will he grants them knowledge of his being.”
A clear divine will is discernable. “You shall be my people and I shall be your God.’ Because of this the fear that constantly haunts the pagan world, the fear of arbitrariness and caprice in the Godhead, is excluded” (38). The content of that will is defined in ways that make the human party aware of the position (39).
The bond of nature religion was broken (42). The covenant did not allow an inherent bond in the believer, the order of nature, and the god. Chain of being is broken. Divinity does not display itself in the mysterium of nature. Election is the opposite of nature religions (43). Israelite ritual does not mediate “cosmic power.” “One indication of decisive importance in this respect is the fact that the covenant is not concluded by the performance of a wordless action, having its value in itself, but is accompanied by the word as the expression of the divine will” (44).
The History of the Covenant Concept
Eichrodt discusses the dangers the covenant idea faced. Canaanite ideas quickly muted the sharp sounds of the covenant. “The gulf set between God and man by his terrifying majesty was leveled out of existence by the emphasis laid on their psycho-physical relatedness and community” (46). It is interesting to compare this description with Paul Tillich’s claim that the church placed the intermediaries of saints and angels over the Platonic hierarchy of Forms.
Prayer
“Indicative of the pattern of Old Testament piety is the fact that the dominant motives of prayer never included that of losing oneself, through contemplation, in the divine infinity. There was no room in Israel for mystical prayer; the nature of the Mosaic Yahweh with his mighty personal will effectively prevented the development of that type of prayer which seeks to dissolve the individual I in the unbounded One. Just as the God of the Old Testament is no Being reposing in his own beatitude, but reveals himself in the controlling will of the eternal King, so the pious Israelite is no intoxicated, world-denying mystic revelling in the Beyond, but a warrior, who wrestles even in prayer, and looks for the life of power in communion with his divine Lord. His goal is not the static concept of the summum bonum, but the dynamic fact of the Basileia tou Theou” (176).
